biomechanics / 19 posts found

I heard a lot of talk among coaches at the ABCA Convention in Dallas last month about motor learning and skill acquisition science. That’s a good thing. It’s refreshing to see so many coaches and MLB teams expanding their horizons and pushing toward a more “science-based, data-driven” approach to enhance both in-game performance and player development. When I played, we all wanted to work hard; however, knowing what to work on was always a problem. I can remember going into my mother’s…

Since we literally broke down the walls of our Physical Therapy practice and entered the baseball training industry, we’ve seen thousands of hopeful students come through our doors. Nearly all of them have had dreams of throwing 90+ mph, playing in college, getting drafted, or playing in the big leagues. Over the years, we’ve helped 267 guys develop a 90+ mph fastball. FBR students have earned scholarships at every level of college baseball, saving their families millions of dollars…

Last week the high schools in our area held their annual tryouts. Opening day is in two weeks. For most of our students, this is an exciting time — a chance to see the results of the hard work the put in during the offseason. That’s the story for most Ranch Guys … but not all of them. Today, the father of one of our students called and requested a meeting before our 4:00 pm class. Tim (not his real name), a right-handed junior pitcher had been working hard all winter and was steadily…

How 4 Words Changed a Baseball Career and a Life My first season as a baseball player at The Citadel, I was an ineligible redshirt Junior. I had transferred to The Citadel after two years at Erskine College, which at the time, was a small NAIA school (500 students) in South Carolina. By NCAA rule, I had to sit out for a year. I could practice with the team, but could not play in the games. Lots of naysayers said I was crazy for making the switch. I was a two-year starter at shortstop at Erskine,…

Does this make sense? If you want to be a great guitar player, it would be helpful to be able to play the guitar more than most people play the guitar. If you want to be a great chemist, you should probably plan on doing chemistry stuff (whatever that means) more than the average person does chemistry stuff. And if you want to be a great throwing athlete (pitcher or fielder), you should probably plan on throwing more than the average person throws. This is where, in the baseball training industry,…

Back in the early 15th century, the science of cartography, or mapmaking, was emerging as a new and important piece of the scientific community. At that time, mapmakers were very successful in making precisely accurate two-dimensional (planar) maps of local areas. However, when they extended those maps out to larger areas, it was discovered that the maps became increasingly inaccurate. as the region being mapped grew larger. Additionally, planar maps of smaller areas could not be combined into a…

During the winter of 2016, a young 8th grader named Camden Minacci checked in at our physical therapy clinic for rehab after surgery on his right forearm. Cam was a baseball player, but this was not a throwing injury. You see, a few weeks prior, Cam had been playing in a basketball game in one of those gyms with the short baseline area and a door under the basket. On a breakaway, he tried to use the brick wall as his brakes, and this happened (shown with the approval of Cam and his parents). It…

I met Minnesota Twins starting pitcher, Kyle Gibson on December 20, 2016. After a stellar college career at Missouri, Kyle was chosen with the 22nd overall pick in the 2009 MLB draft. He looked to be on the fast track to the majors until he was sidelined by a UCL tear in 2011. He eventually made his major league debut on June 29th, 2013. By 2015, he had become a mainstay in the Twins rotation. On the surface, Kyle’s career seemed to be trending upward. However, underneath all the hope,…

One of the keys to efficient movement in pitching is stabilizing attractors. As described in several previous articles, in The Dynamical Systems Theory, which is the guiding force in our approach to training, “attractors” are stable parts of movements and “fluctuations” are the variable components. Through research and deductive reasoning, we’ve identified 7 attractors in throwing that must be stable for maximizing efficiency, performance and injury risk reduction. For more on our attractor-based…

Pablo Escobar, Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, Carlo Gambino, Jessie James, John Dillinger. What do they have in common? They’re all notorious gang leaders — criminals who influenced their underlings to commit crimes against humanity. Say what you want about the morality of their endeavors, but In their respective hay days, they were all highly successful, and their organizations functioned efficiently. However, in all cases, changes in their business environment (i.e., attention from The…